My mentors, Dan & Brad spoke last night and stressed that the key to a successful business is leads and sales. You might add a third, which is conversion. Just because you have a lead doesn’t guarantee a sale, so conversion is important as well. Although if you have enough leads you can overcome poor conversion.
Play to Your Strengths
They pointed out that some people are able to excel at both, but many people have a knack for one or the other. So team up and let each person do what they are strongest at. One generating leads and the other closing business. Sometimes the whole is more than the sum of the parts. Each of you should make more money teaming up.
We were also reminded that business owners don’t care how many ads you run, whether they are in position 1 on a Google search or anything else like that. They care that they are getting leads, making sales and growing their business. If you can deliver leads, they aren’t going to care what position they are in.
Listen and Question vs. Pitch
Find out from them how many leads they are getting currently. How much is an average sale and what is the average margin or profit per sale. Then you can figure out where they are now. Then ask given their current resources, how much extra capacity do they have to do more work. If they are maxed out, that is a different discussion.
Most companies have more capacity to do work that they an utilize. Then take that number and multiply out and figure out if they could get the leads and the sales, how much extra in sales and profit that would be. Then ask them what they are doing to get there. If they are just going to do more of the same, they might not make it to that goal. They need a new channel and strategy to bring in more sales. That would be you!
Listen, Diagnose, Prescribe
By finding where there pain is and where their dreams and vision are you are gaining information and leverage so you can better sell them but more importantly so you can better help them. If it doesn’t work for both parties you probably won’t make a sale. So don’t just pitch them and sound like everyone else touting why they are great. Listen, diagnose, and then prescribe.